1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for controlling broadcast of and/or customer access to data such as video programs in accordance with objective profile data indicative of the customer's preferences for that data. More particularly, a preferred embodiment of the invention relates to a system and method for determining from objective profile data of the customers which data or video programming is most desired by each customer so that the customers may receive data or video programming customized to their objective preferences. The objective profile data is updated on a continuing basis to reflect each customer's changing preferences so that the content of the data channels or video programming may be updated accordingly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The so-called "Information Super Highway" is expected to bring wondrous technological changes to society. Data of all kinds will become readily available to the public in quantities never before imaginable. Recent breakthroughs in video compression technologies are expected to extend the "Information Super Highway" right into the video realm by allowing customers to receive literally hundreds of video channels in their homes. While the prospects of opening a whole new world of information to the average person are exciting, there is much concern that the average person will simply be overwhelmed by the quantity of data piped into their homes. Some techniques must be developed which permit the travelers of the Information Super Highway to navigate through the plethora of available information sources without getting hopelessly lost.
For example, in the home video context, it is desired to provide mechanisms which present the available video information to the customers in a comprehensible way. Such mechanisms should eliminate the necessity of "channel surfing" to find a program suitable for viewing out of the hundreds of video programming alternatives which are expected to be made available. The present invention is thus designed to help the customer of video and other data services to receive, with minimal effort, the information he or she is most interested in.
Numerous systems are available which assist customers in determining which video programs to watch. For example, electronic program guides and the like are available which give customers on-screen access to the upcoming programming whereby the desired programming may be selected in advance for later recording. An early system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,782 to Miller allows the viewer to preselect a television viewing schedule of desired television channels to be viewed during subsequent time periods. Miller also monitors the television programs actually watched by the television viewer and relays this information to a central data processing center over a communication link. Subsequent interactive cable systems, such as that described by Freeman in U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,924, permit the viewer to select the information to be received on particular channels. The cable system described by Freeman also provides individually tailored messages to the individual viewers. Similarly, Young disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,121 a system which permits the viewer to select programs from schedule information by controlling a programmable television tuner to provide the broadcast signals for the selected programs to the television receiver at the time of broadcast. This system can also be used to control a VCR for unattended recording of the selected programs. Further details of such a VCR recording system is provided by Young in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,977,455 and 5,151,789. Other systems, such as that described by Reiter et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,578, provide updatable television programming information via telephone link, magnetic cards, floppy disks, television or radio sub-carrier, and the like, to the viewer's television screen in such a manner that the viewer may selectively search this information.
Unfortunately, in each of the aforementioned prior art systems, the customer must actively select the desired programming. In other words, these systems facilitate access to programming designated by the customer but provide no assistance to the customer in determining what programming to select for subsequent viewing. With the possibility of several hundred video channels soon becoming available to video customers, additional systems are desirable which assist the customer in selecting the desired programming.
The system described by Herz et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,075 partially addresses the above problems, at least with respect to the provision of movies over cable television. As described therein, members of a "Home Video Club" select the video programs they would like to see in the following week. A scheduling computer receives the members' inputs for the current week and determines the schedule for the following week based upon the tabulated preferences. This schedule is then made available to the members of the Home Video Club. If, when, and how often a particular video program is transmitted is determined by the customer preferences received by the scheduling computer. Prime time viewing periods are used to make certain that the most popular video programs are broadcast frequently and at the most desirable times. As with the aforementioned systems, the "Home Video Club" system does not automatically broadcast the most desired video programs to the customers but instead requires the active participation of the customers to "vote" for the most desired video programs for subsequent viewing.
It is desired to extend a customer preference system such as the "Home Video Club" to include general cable programming offerings and to minimize active customer involvement in the determination of the desired programming. Unlike the movie scheduling system described in the "Home Video Club" application, the number and content of general cable programming channels is scheduled in advance and typically cannot be changed by the customer through a simple voting system. As a result, the customer can only vary his or her video programming by changing channels. In other words, the customer typically illustrates his or her programming preferences by changing channels. Indeed, such changes are monitored by Nielsen, Arbitron, and other ratings agencies in setting the rates for advertising. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,591, one of the present inventors carried this concept a step further by obtaining information about the customers and then demographically targeting television commercials to the customers most likely to respond favorably to such advertising. Unfortunately, however, this demographic and customer preference information has not been specifically described for providing customized channels which better reflect the customers' preferences for the programming itself.
The present inventors have found that the aforementioned problems may be overcome by creating customized programming channels from all of the programming available at any time and broadcasting the customized programming channels to groups of customers. The customer's set top multimedia terminal then creates "virtual channels" as a collection of the received programming data from one or more of the customized programming channels at any point in time for receipt on the customer's television. These virtual channels are received as an additional offering to the regular broadcast transmission and are customized to the customer's preferences. Thus, as used herein, a "virtual channel" is a channel formed as a composite of several source materials or programs which may or may not change during respective time periods to reflect the programming most desirable to the customer during that time period. The creation of such "virtual channels" is intended to minimize the amount of "channel surfing" necessary to find the most preferred video program at a particular time.
Previous attempts at providing such selective access to programming have required active customer participation. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,381,522, Lambert disclosed a system in which the customer is permitted to specify which television signal source is to be connected to the video switch for broadcasting of a desired television program to the customer. The desired program is selected from a program schedule channel provided to the customer. Hashimoto discloses more elaborate systems in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,745,549 and 5,075,771 in which programs suitable to individual customer's tastes are selected from all of the available television programs in accordance with the customer preferences specified on a customer questionnaire or provided from the customer over a telephone link or the like. The viewer preference data provided using the questionnaires, the telephone lines, and the like is then statistically processed by linear programming to provide an individual subscriber television program list which may be used by the video provider to select which programs to broadcast to particular individuals. Subscriber complaints about the program list are used to "tune" the television program list to better match the individual's tastes. An automatic controller is also used to automatically control a television or video cassette recorder in accordance with the subscriber's specified tastes. However, the system disclosed by Hashimoto works from limited objective data provided by the customer in response to a questionnaire and provides no mechanism for validating the accuracy of the profile of that customer other than through the use of a complaint system. In addition, the system disclosed by Hashimoto does not determine the desirability of particular video programs but merely allows the customer to characterize those types of programs to which he or she may be most interested.
For the reasons noted above, feedback regarding the customer programming and purchasing preferences is highly desirable. It is highly desirable to develop a technique for better acquiring and quantifying such customer video programming and purchasing preferences. Along these lines, Strubbe recently described a system in U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,924 which provides an interface for automatically correlating the customer preferences with the television program information and then creating and displaying a personalized customer program database from the results of the correlation. In the Strubbe system, the customer specifies whether he or she "likes" a particular video program and the database is updated accordingly. Then, from the video programs "liked" by the customer, a second, personalized, database is created. However, as with each of the systems described above, the Strubbe system does not develop customer profiles and automatically update the database of "liked" videos using feedback. Also, Strubbe does not teach that the preference information may be used to predict what new video programs the customer may like and then schedule those new video programs for viewing.
Those in the technical press have fantasized about so-called "smart" televisions which will keep track of past viewing preferences and suggest new programs that match the customer's personal tastes so that the customer need not "channel surf" through the 500 channel video system of the future. However, prior to the present invention, no one known to the present inventors has been able to make such "smart" televisions a reality. Indeed, the present invention is believed to be the first system to create "virtual channels" of recommended programming for each customer of a video or other data service.